Ehud

[Tom Tighe]

Israel’s struggle with God continues. It seems each generation has to relearn the lessons of trust and obedience God taught during the Exodus.

The story of Ehud is one of my favorites because of the almost boastful detail of the assassination of the oppressive Moabite king. Ehud taped a short sword to the inside of his right thigh, a place most ( right handed) people couldn’t draw from. The Moabite guards didn’t check the inside of his thighs, clearly they didn’t work for the TSA. Ehud pushes the sword in to the hilt and Eglons fat then enveloped the handle. When Eglon died, his bowels released. The guards could smell it through the door and assumed he was using his chamber pot. This delay by the guards allowed Ehud to escape.

This is not a typical Bible story. The details and nature of the story convince me it’s true, because it doesn’t really whitewash Israel’s history into only righteous actions. The open truth of this story brings historic validity to the rest of the Bible.